In the last episode of #4GWARS I wondered aloud if AT&T would start referring to their HSPA+ upgrade as “4G” now that T-Mobile was doing it. We were under the impression that AT&T’s network could only do speeds of 14.4 Mbps based on comments from their CEO, but new information suggest otherwise.

To my surprise, AT&T is now claiming their HSPA+ network is also capable of the same 21 Mbps speeds that T-Mobile is offering. They even go one step further by boasting their current coverage area is greater that what T-Mobile has right now or will have by year’s end.

In an email to Phone Scoop AT&T said, “T-Mobile’s claims about 4G are based on the same HSPA+ technology we have deployed to 180 million people today, more than T-Mobile’s reported 140 million, and we’ll have it rolled out to 250 million people by the end of this month, substantially more than the 200 million T-Mobile says it will have by year-end.”

AT&T does not currently offer any “4G” phones, but they do sell a USB modem that takes advantage of HSPA+ speeds. If AT&T really wanted to, they could launch a device similar to the G2 or myTouch 4G and claim they also offer “4G speeds”.

Taylor is the founder of Android and Me. He resides in Dallas and carries the Samsung Galaxy S 4 and HTC One as his daily devices. Ask him a question on Twitter or Google+ and he is likely to respond. | Ethics statement

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Oh jeez!
Heres the thing
People already have their reasons and opinions for disliking each carrier anyway so at the end of the day, if everyone is gonna boast the terms “fast speeds” and “4G”…its going to boil down to 2 elements:
affordability and service

…so all in all…this “battle/war/competition” whatever its gonna be dubbed, will hold Sprint and T-mobile on the top for exactly those 2 reasons.

I said this on a other post in this or another site but AT&T does have HSPA+. My friend has a iPhone 4 and gets 3-4 Mbps down; of course if he and AT&T had a HSPA+ Android (or whatever) phone he’d get the full speed of HSPA+. The iPhone also has 3G video calling via Fring and Yahoo so T-MO’s points are basically bunk.

The fact that AT&T has even more people covered with HSPA+ makes T-MO’s campaign a even bigger joke.

@Gee, I’ve got original MyTouch3G, yea yea stop laughing, we just prove even the old dogs can run with the pups….

any way i am getting 4.5-5.5Mbps download speed on my phone. It’s nothing to brag about the iP4 getting 3Mbps-4Mbps download. For their newest super phone out.

The point is ATT phones are capped to 7.2Mbps download, while the G2 and the MyTouch4G are seeing any where from 7.0-9.6Mbps download speeds. So how can ATT claim to be the “fastest 3G network” when t-Mobile eclipses their speeds with HSPA+?

i bet you don’t take a Chevrolet Caviler to a American LeMans race and expect to win in speeds.

And it’s been stated before and i’m sure it’ll be stated again.

Owning a smartphone on ATT is like owning a Super Car and living in New York City.

I don’t have a iPhone or service with AT&T so I have no vested interest with either (Sprint/EVO 4G if anyone is curious). So with that out of the way, you’re right that AT&T doesn’t have a HSPA+ capable phone but they can still claim to have a “4G-like” network because they do; and according to them their HSPA+ network is even bigger than T-Mobile’s. So basically:

How many of those 180 million people are actually using hspa on at&t ON A CELL PHONE…….
To be honest am not a fan boy I hate both tmobile and at&t . Had them both as carries and they both did an awful job.

I think that at&t would be better calling sprint and tmobiles bluff in an ad campaign and say how they have the same speeds as tmo and that it is really 3g. But then again that would just confuse the average person.

I think it’s safe to say T-Mobile will be in the lead of this “4G” race for the next year or two. Their LTE timeline is far ahead of others and they still have that 42mbps upgrade we’ve been hearing about.

Well AT&T tries to argue with T-Mobile, they may want to actually have phones capable of actually using their HSPA+ network. They may have a larger HSPA+ footprint, but no one on their network is gonna see any of it.

So T-Mobile is still in the lead, offering the most phones with HSPA+, and a growing network that these phones will actually take advantage of the tech.

At&t is just crying cause tmobile beat them to the punch. At&t needs to fucus on letting their iphones makw phone calls before 4G service cause there data and phone service suck in central pa. I watxh att&t users call 5 times untill a connection is made to make a call while us tmobile, verizon and oh my god SPRINT users make a call with one try and make a connection except at&t. Case and point f at&t.

I had a iPhone and AT&T every since the iPhone was released. I upgraded to every iPhone that was released and I can tell you that AT&T’s quality of service is terrible here in the Minneapolis market and this is one of their better markets! I now have T-Mobile and a G2 and I’ve had much better call reception and data speeds. I’ve only dropped maybe 2 calls in the last month and I would drop at least 4 or 5 a day with the iPhone 4 on AT&T. I sold the iPhone and don’t plan to buy another until they move to T-Mobile and come out with at least a 4″ screen. Now that I’ve had the beautiful 3.7″ of the G2 I couldn’t go any smaller and I want a 4″ now.

Before I bought my last phone I was wondering whether to go with AT&T for the Captivate or T-mo for the Vibrant. I did a good comparison between the two 3G coverage areas and AT&T won easily anyplace I’d ever go. T-mo had 3G coverage but it was only right in the middle of the city, AT&T’s map showed them extending further out of the city and to the suburbs and a little beyond. So I stuck with AT&T. Neither of those two can even compare to Verizon’s 3G coverage though.

the claim “fastest 3G” is correct, well at least in Denver. AT&T 3G (HSPA) is consistently around 3Mbps down while Tmobile is ~1 Mbps down. Now, hold on, I’ve speedtested Tmobile’s 4G (HSPA+) in Denver and I get 1.5Mbps – 2.5Mbps down!!! whoa, slow down there Tmobile…

what does this mean? AT&T will be better than Tmobile in parts of the US while Tmobile will be better than AT&T in other parts. Go with the network that works the best for you! stop with these carrier “my p#nis is larger than yours” wars. If AT&T was as bad as your portray, they would have no subscribers… but wait, they have more than Tmobile!

It’s all a big joke! As reported by numerous blogs, none of them have true 4G speeds and are using this to confuse the ill informed consumer. I smell class action lawsuit. Where are all the low life attorneys when you need them? What’s taking you so long? take these jokers through the ringer and either force them to provide 4G speeds of 100mbs or stop advertising lies to the non informed like my poor elderly mother.

Let them fight, its only good for all of us. I don’t care what they call it, I just want a fast wireless data connection. My EVO, here in Los Angeles, now gets up to 9mb download and 1mb up. That’s fast enough for me. “4G” coverage isn’t completed yet, so it isn’t available all over the city, but since their 3G speeds are up to 3mb (by experience), I’m OK to wait patiently. They all have “good” or better data speeds where available. My choice of a carrier will not be based on that for that fact. What WILL decide my choice of carrier will be:

I’ve been on every carrier available in Los Angeles, and I can honestly say that Sprint is the best carrier here. They might not get the best phones, but that is changing, or at least they have competitive phones at this point. Can’t complain about my Evo, I love it.

Let them fight it out, rise the bar, and lower the prices. Like I said, we all win.

Here’s what’s up…Sadly, it’s almost impossible to defend, or be for, at&t on an android site withot being thumbed downed…the true definition of what 4G is has been made by the people that have the authroity to do it, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). According to this definition, Sprint has no 4G network, Verizon’s LTE won’t be 4G, and T-Mobiles HSPA+ is not 4G…This means that they are lying to their customers by saying it is 4G…at&t isn’t lying about it but is saying that the other carries are lying, which is the truth…So, what’s the big deal…

I knew about hspa+ for a long time with tmo, but suddenly saw 4g commercials so I had to see what the buzz is online… This is stupid, to actually call it 4g! ITs 3g on steroids, and when working well it rivals the 4g standards, so we could call it “speeds like 4g” but thats like saying that usb is better than firewire, its 480Mb/s, but in reality it doesnt go nearly that fast on a consistant basis! When a true 4g system is rolled out properly then anybody who actually cares about a true high speed network wont look back! but by todays standards T-mo is rolling out the best system on the market, in my opinion. At&t’s network uses the same technology and is theoretically capable of the same (if they do all the upgrades to the towers and start selling capable phones, and they will carry capable phones mark my word… all the phones come from the same factories in china!) but their (Att’s) own network people say that it is not capable of 21mbps or more at that time, so tmobile should have challenged at&t’s claim of the fastest 3g network rather than lying and claiming to have a true 4g network!